


Towards Truth

by Owlix



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Politics, Rung being Rung
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlix/pseuds/Owlix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rung wants to make sure that Megatron is fit to stand trial. But he also wants to understand the truth of why Megatron abandoned pacifism for violence, and he isn't as easily manipulated as Optimus Prime.</p><p>Takes place directly after Chaos Theory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Towards Truth

**Author's Note:**

> [Chinese translation available](http://ningliang1995.lofter.com/post/1cba91e1_341c36f) \- thank you Cindy!

 

The room smelled of harsh antiseptic and clean metal. It was quiet and dark and cold. _He_ sat in the corner of the cell, still as a statue, back to the wall.

Despite the bars, Megatron was restrained. His armor flickered along the seams in the dark - a soft, subtle purple that painted the walls of his cell. In recharge, Rung had thought, but no. He was awake, just still.

They’d been keeping him in isolation. Rung didn’t agree with this - considered it an abuse of power and a form of torture. Cruel and unusual punishment. Mechs unravelled in isolation. It did bad things to the mind and to the spark. But no one had been particularly interested in his opinion on the subject, and he was already pressing his luck.

It would make his job easier. Even Megatron wouldn’t be immune to the damage that prolonged solitary confinement caused. It would make him eager for contact - eager to talk. The idea of benefiting from such psychological cruelty bothered Rung, but it was there, and there was no way not to use it.

Megatron lifted his head. His optics flashed online - red and too intense. Rung met them, unflinching. He stood still and let Megatron look him over - his empty hands, his small body, his calm demeanour.

“Why are you here?” Megatron finally asked, his voice staticked with disuse.

“My name is Rung. Rung of the Pious Pools. I’m a psychiatrist.” No response. “I’m here to help you.”

Megatron chuckled low at that, but didn’t speak.

“There is some concern,” Rung continued, even and professional. “Your behavior is… worrying. Some might say suicidal. I’m here to make sure that you know what you’re doing - that you’re fit to stand trial. That your decision to plead guilty - and that your request to be put to death rather than live out your life incarcerated, should you be found guilty - is one that you’re capable of making. And one that you’re making of your own free will.”

Megatron kept chuckling - low and rough, shaking his head.

“ _He_ sent you?”

“Who?”

Megatron met Rung's gaze, optics fierce and blazing with hate. Rung looked back cooly, unflinching.

“Ah,” Rung said. “You mean Optimus Prime. No.”

“Then who? Unless - hah - of course. All of this sudden concern for me isn’t soft-sparked Autobot compassion. It’s what you do best, I suppose - disguising your self-serving manipulations as charity.”

Rung quirked an eyebrow. He reached into the compartment in his chest and pulled out a small datapad and stylus.

“You just want to understand me. To understand what made me. To prevent any others like me from rising after you lot hold me down and snuff me out.” Megatron smiled. “You needn’t worry. I’m unique.”

Rung’s expression didn’t change. He jotted down a quick note in his datapad. “I am a psychiatrist. A healer. I assure you, I am not here for any other reason than to make certain you’re well.”

“I’m sure. Just like everyone claimed before you - simply here to talk. How long until you tire of words and shift tactics to torture?” He grinned like he would prefer it, but Rung could sense the faint tension in his cabling. “Even your illustrious leader, Prime, paragon of virtue that he is, tried his hand at it.”

Megatron rolled his shoulders, where the VVH harness sat heavy, and watched Rung with sharp red optics. He was expecting some kind of response - shock or horror or denial. Rung noted the faint disappointment when he didn’t get one.

“Yes,” Rung said evenly. “I know. Optimus and I spoke extensively before he allowed me to have access to you. He thought it best for me to be aware of certain things before we began. He’s already prepared me for any… surprises.”

Megatron’s low, rough laugh meant he knew exactly what Rung had been told - and that he expected some had still been held back.

“You surrendered," Rung said, steering the discussion to a productive path. "Optimus suspects that you did it to be near him. To talk. To drag him down to your own level.”

No response.

“I disagree with Optimus," Rung said. "I think that you manipulated him into drawing those conclusions. I think that half of what you told him was lies. I have my own thoughts about why you did what you did. If you'd like to talk about it, I'll share them.”

Megatron ignored him, still as a statue, optics dim.

“This trial won’t go forward until you’ve convinced me that you’re well enough to make this decision,”  Rung said, his tone reasonable. “You won’t get what you want by staying silent.”

No response. Well, Rung had never expected this to be easy.

“We’ll continue this tomorrow,” he said, putting his datapad away.

 

Rung returned. Megatron sat in his cell, very still, optics offline.

“Hello, Megatron.”

The big mech laughed, staticked and rough. “Back again,” he said. “For more ‘talk.’”

“Yes,” Rung said, ignoring the tone in his voice. “Are you ready to talk, then? About why you came here, and about why you surrendered?”

No answer. Then - “Why did they send you in here? I’ve seen them, cowering by the door. Jostling for a look at me. Too terrified to come closer. Warriors, all of them. And then, to talk to me, they send…” He gestured, disgusted. “You. Why?”

“This is my job,” Rung said evenly, brushing aside his annoyance. He liked being small - being underestimated was useful, as much as it sometimes hurt. “What I specialize in, actually. Criminals. The war-damaged. I’ve been doing this sort of work for a very long time.”

Megatron grinned unpleasantly and flexed his hands. “I’ve been doing my sort of work for longer.”

“Actually, you haven’t,” Rung said dryly. “I’m old, you see. Quite a bit older than you are.”

Rung could sense Megatron’s interest, although the big mech tried to hide it. A shift in weight, a tension in his cabling. “Are you?”

“Yes. Old enough to remember the Functionists and their rise all too well.”

Megatron’s sharp red optics flickered bright and swept across Rung’s frame, gaze lingering on the curve of a wheel at Rung’s back. Having that fierce attention turned on him was unnerving, but Rung’s professional calm didn’t waver.

“What was your function, before the war?” Megatron asked. Rung didn’t answer - didn’t want to reward his attempt to derail the conversation. “No need to tell me. It’s clear. Your alt mode, whatever it is, can’t be built for labor. And that accent. You were upper caste.”

Rung didn’t speak. He couldn't disagree. For all the Functionists put him through - for all he had silently hated and disagreed with them - he _had_ been high caste. They had bought his silence with it, and he had taken it, knowing full well what it meant and what sick system it supported. Because it had allowed him to do good, to help people, but also because it had been comfortable - because they had given him something he feared to lose.

Megatron snorted a laugh, misinterpreting Rung’s silence. “Well. At least you have the self-awareness to be ashamed of it.”

“I’m familiar with your written work,” Rung said, wanting to change the subject and sure Megatron would follow that line of discussion.

And yes, he leaned forward, red optics gleaming. “I’m not surprised to hear it. Even among Autobots, my manifesto is widely read, I’m told.”

“It is. Both, actually - _Towards Peace_ , and the later edition of _After the Ark_ \- the one you circulated widely during the war. But I’m also familiar with the original edition, with the nonviolent elements still intact. As well as some of your more obscure work. Never widely circulated. _Pacifism in the Face of Tyranny_ , among others.”

Megatron’s cabling pulled faintly taut again. He waited, unsure of his best move.

“Optimus,” Rung explained. “He kept everything, you know. All this time, through war and chaos and instability. He provided me with everything that he thought would help.”

Megatron’s cabling ratcheted up its tension. It took Rung a moment to realize why.

“Only the political essays,” Rung clarified softly. “Not your personal correspondences. And not your poetry. Optimus agreed with me that reading those would be a breach of privacy.”

The tension in Megatron’s body eased again. Rung let himself consider that for just a moment - Megatron, nervous about poetry.

“You don’t wear a badge,” Megatron said abruptly, shaking Rung from his thoughts.

“I- what?” Rung reprimanded himself for being taken off-guard.

“You’re an Autobot, but you don’t wear a badge. Why?”

It was complicated. Because Rung had never believed in the war - not really. Because he had never believed in the Autobot cause either, although he knew that they were trying to do good. Because he wasn’t the type of mech to believe in any ideology, not with the type of blind faith that others often had. And because he knew what his own “side” had done - had spent centuries healing the scars that it had left on its own members.

“I don’t see combat,” Rung said, once the silence had already stretched out too long. “There’s no need for me to wear a badge.”

“No. You don’t believe in it. The war.” The big mech was uncomfortably astute. “I wonder why. Were you convinced by the foolish arguments of my youth?”

“Am I a pacifist, you mean?” Rung asked. He decided that it would be a productive direction for the conversation to take if he answered.  “No. I believe in using nonviolent means to solve problems whenever possible, but sometimes… Sometimes violence is necessary.”

“It is,” Megatron agreed, and for the first time Rung fought the urge to cringe and turn away.

“But you _were_ a pacifist,” Rung said, pushing that discomfort aside. “I’ve read your work. You were sincere. What changed?”

“If you’ve talked to Prime, you already know. The beating. In his prison, under his watch.”

Rung sighed and leaned back. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t believe you.”

Silence. Megatron’s optics widened and then narrowed, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to speak. He had grown too used to being a dictator - too used to not being contradicted, and too used to responding to those contradictions with violence.

“I believe that you believe it, at least on some level,” Rung continued. “That it’s the lie you tell yourself. But it isn’t true. You weren’t so weak that a single beating could break you.”

“Break isn’t the word,” Megatron said. His speech settled into the pattern of an often-told lie. “It forged me. Turned me into something stronger. Made me understand the true nature of our society.”

“Did it?”

“It may be hard for you to understand, _medic_. Sheltered as you were from the Functionists’ violence, and from the violence of this war, with your privileged position so carefully cultivated. You don’t understand what it means to be beaten nearly to death in a filthy cell, to know that you’ll be just another tool discarded, all because of the way you were made.”

“True,” Rung said, and it was - Rung had seen violence, had been a victim of it, had spent his entire life helping others heal from the ramifications of it, but his experience had still been very different than Megatron’s, or those of any labor-caste. Through his extensive work with Impactor, Rung had some idea of just how bad conditions had been in the mines.  “But you understand it. And you understood it long before that day.”

Megatron went still again, and Rung knew that his hunch had been right. He pressed further, with the certainty of truth behind his words.

“You were never the type to submit quietly, Megatron. Even then - even when you believed in pacifism to the core of your spark - you were never _passive_. You’d been beaten before. Beaten to near-death before. In fact, I’m willing to bet you’d been beaten more times than you could remember, even then.”

Megatron’s hands were clenched, his body taut.

“What was different? If it was that moment that changed you, what made his violence different than all the rest?”

“You’re right,” Megatron said, and his voice was thick and red with hate, and under it, the pain and fear that always accompanied hate that deep. “I had been beaten countless times before. Sometimes near to death. And when they were finished - after my fellow miners dragged me out of the way so they could keep working, and dragged me to the medic when our shifts were over -” he laughed, sounding abruptly very old - “the higher-ups took the repair cost out of my pay.

“And what were you doing while I and countless others were being beaten? What were you doing for us - for any of us? Making excuses, I suspect, for why you couldn’t act, or why you couldn’t act overtly.”

Rung opened his mouth, about to speak. Megatron was trying to shift the subject of their conversation - because Rung had nearly found some truth that Megatron couldn’t bear for him to see. But Megatron voiced his rage, a deep roaring growl of voice and low static, and Rung fell silent in the face of him.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses or your rationalizations. I’ve heard them all. How we had to do things slowly. Had to be patient for the sake of everyone in the higher castes. I’ve heard the same excuses from better bots than you. Heard enough from _Prime_ to last me another four million years.”

Megatron fell silent. Rung let the silence stretch out for a long moment before making a brief note in his datapad.

“Are you aware that you always call him that?” Rung asked. “Not Optimus Prime, or Optimus. Not even Orion Pax, which I might expect given the history between you. No, it’s always _Prime_.”

Megatron clenched his hands into tight, violent fists, turned his face away, and exhaled a hot gladiatorial snort of near-steaming air.

“Why do you think that is?” Rung asked evenly, unfazed. “It seems strange that you of all people would refer to him by his function rather than his name.”

Megatron sat still and silent. For a moment, Rung was sure that he had pushed too far, too hard. But then Megatron finally spoke, all tightly controlled hate.

“He lost his right to a name when he accepted that title. _Prime_.” Megatron spat the word. “That’s all that’s left of him. The only name that he deserves. Anything of worth in him…”

“It isn’t gone,” Rung said gently.

“Not gone. Corrupted. Still there, but warped. Better if he was gone entirely. Better if he was dead than that.”

Rung took a quick note on his datapad. “When he accepted the Matrix and took the title of Prime, you felt… betrayed.”

“I _was_ betrayed. We were going to change the world. Going to bring on a new and golden future, and wipe clean the sins of our past. Not perpetuate the sick system that came before us by becoming a part of it.”

“He was trying to change the world,” Rung said gently.

Megatron met his gaze - the cold rage there was chilling. “I know him better than you do,” he said. “I am well aware of what he’s trying to do, and why. But like I told him - _like I always told him - the Senate’s tools cannot dismantle the Senate’s_ -”

Megatron stopped himself, but it was too late.

“Ah. A quote from the original edition of _After the Ark_.” With a flick of his finger, Rung brought up the relevant passage on his datapad. “ _Violence cannot end violence_ ,” he read aloud. “ _It only adds to it. The tactics of the past cannot be used to build a truly different future. We must build something new, not a shadow of what came before. The Senate’s tools-_ ”

Megatron stood.

He moved quietly for such a large mech - joints frictionless and smooth from his recent rebuild and even more recent repairs - but the floor still shook as each foot took his weight. He bent down slightly, putting his face closer to Rung’s behind the bars. That only served to emphasize their size difference; Rung was barely taller than Megatron’s knee. Megatron’s hands hung loose and threateningly close, unnerving despite the cuffs and the bars.

He met Rung’s optics with his own.

“I no longer wish to speak of Prime,” Megatron said. And there was murder in his voice.

Rung was used to dealing with killers - was a rare member of his species in that he _hadn’t_ killed another of his kind. Cybertronians were largely a species of murderers, even if you called it war. Rung had dealt with soldiers and Dead-Enders, Wreckers and war criminals -- had made his life’s work at it. Threats of violence did not shock or cow him.

Megatron’s voice made his spinal strut prickle and his fuel go cold. He resisted the irrational urge to run out of the room. Megatron sat back down, satisfied that he had made his point. Rung found his voice again. Megatron couldn’t hurt him. He was safe. And he couldn’t afford to let Megatron manipulate him with empty threats.

“All right, then,” Rung said, his voice even and calm. “Let’s go back to what’s important.” Megatron would like that - Optimus, unimportant. “Let’s talk about the moment when you learned to hate. Tell me about it. I want to understand.”

And it worked. Megatron preened, a little smile on his lips. As Rung had guessed, he responded well to having his ego stroked.

“You’ve spoken to-” Megatron bit the word back, then let himself speak it. “To Prime. You already know.”

“Yes,” Rung said. “I’ve heard his version. But I want you to tell it. I want to hear it from you. Please. Tell me what made this different.”

Megatron looked at him for a long time. Rung met his optics and didn’t flinch away. Megatron was the first to break their gaze.

“It was his face,” Megatron finally said, and Rung had the feeling that he was finally starting to be honest. “Or rather, his lack of one.”

Whirl, having recently fallen victim to the punishment of empurtata. Rung tried to hide his reaction, but some of it must have slipped through because Megatron’s brows lifted with something like respect.

“Ah. I see by your expression that you understand.” Megatron looked away again. His tone slowly took on the tone of political preaching. “He’d committed some crime. They’d taken his face for it, and his hands. A too-common punishment back then. I suppose we’re all too busy for that kind of ritual now.

"The system had failed him. More than fail him - had taken his hands. His face. His very _personhood_. And yet he served them. Because of what they’d done. Because they had _broken_ him with their violence."

Megatron smiled unpleasantly and turned to face Rung. “I saw that, and I realized that I’d been incorrect all along. Violence works. Sometimes it works remarkably well. And all violence is not equal. Some is worse than others. Some is _better_. And it does damage the violent. But sometimes self-destruction is a valid tactic of war.”

“And is that what this is to you?” Rung asked, sincere and calm. “This entire war? Mutual self-destruction?”

Megatron laughed, cold. “Our culture was bent towards that path long before our war began. If you’re as old as you say - if you’ve done the work that you say you have - you know that too, despite your privileged position. Any peace we ever pretended to have was just silent suffering curtailed by threat of violence. An endless cycle of voiceless pain. If more violence - overt war rather than silent suffering - was to be the only thing to break the cycle, I was willing to take that burden on my own shoulders.

“In my cell, I lost my foolish faith that we as a species could be better through our own collective volition. We aren’t good enough for nonviolence. Aren’t good enough for it as a _species_. I realized that we needed a unity of vision in order to change. And if that unity of vision had to come through force, so be it.”

They sat together for a moment, in a long and mutual silence.

“I’m sorry,” Rung said, “but you’re still not being honest. Not with me.” He looked down at his datapad and shook his head. “Not even with yourself.”

Megatron actually shifted at that. Rung could feel the big mech staring at him. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered, not now, not when he finally understood the truth.

“No,” Rung said. “ I know what this is all about. And I’m sorry. I know I said we’d no longer speak of him, but he’s the center of it for you, isn’t he?"

Megatron didn't answer, but his optics narrowed.

“It was him,” Rung said sadly. He understood now. “Optimus Prime - Orion Pax. It was always about him, ever since you met him in that prison - ever since his compassion and dedication to the truth first saved your life.”

Megatron hid his responses well, but Rung was good at what he did. He noticed the minute flinch, the faint re-focusing of optics. Heard the barely-audible intake of air.

“You saw him for what he was - saw his purity, saw his idealism, saw his compassion. Mid-caste - not ground down by hard labor or ruined by the opulence of the upper castes. He was the perfect audience for your words.  And he read your work, but he didn’t put down his weapons. No - after reading what you'd written, he turned around and maimed three mechs, then shot his way into the Senate hall.”

Rung expected Megatron to shout, to stand, to threaten. But he did none of this. The unexpected truth in Rung’s words had stunned him into silence - had briefly laid him bare. He sat still, optics wide, systems still to near-silence.

“You couldn’t convince him," Rung said. "Couldn’t convince him of the value of nonviolent resistance. Couldn’t convince him to lay down arms. And if _Orion Pax_ couldn’t be convinced of pacifism’s validity, what hope was there for the rest of us? What hope was there for _you_?

“It was the beating in that cell that cracked you open, maybe. But it was failing to reach Optimus Prime that broke you.”

His words out - the truth spoken - Rung fell silent. He waited, unsure what he expected. Rage, maybe, or violence. But when Megatron spoke, his voice held none of the grand rhetoric of his speeches.

“Those first essays were the best words I could write,” Megatron said, staring down at his own shackled hands, “and he was the best mech I would ever find to read them. If I couldn’t reach him, then how could I-”

Megatron fell silent, abruptly realizing what he was saying and in front of who. He dimmed his optics and went very still. It wasn’t much honesty. A moment. A flash. And born of carelessness. Still, more than Rung had hoped to expect.

Rung stood. Megatron didn’t respond at all to the movement. He’d shut himself in tight, more restrained and controlled than Rung suspected he’d been against Optimus’ torture.

“That’s enough for today,” Rung said softly. He put his datapad away. “Thank you for your honesty.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who helped me with this, but especially to Galena, who listened to WAY too much of my chatter about it. I probably wouldn't have finished this without her extensive helpful feedback and critique.
> 
> Also - thanks for reading :)


End file.
